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Dark Chocolate Cookies

I held back as long as I could, but finally gave in and made the Dark Chocolate Cookies (Martha Stewart Living, July issue). I have a thing about dark chocolate. A big thing. I don’t really like milk chocolate and I definitely don’t like white chocolate, but dark chocolate is the nectar of the gods. This recipe had been singing its siren song to me since the issue arrived.

I got down to business. First, I made the dough. This is a sandwich cookie. You mix up the dough then Martha says to freeze it for 15 minutes. Here’s the first problem. It needs to freeze for much longer. My cookies came out misshapen and smushed because they would not hold their shape. I kept putting the dough back in the freezer and trying again. The dough stuck to the rolling pin, to the counter, to the cutter, and to me. Teen Martha was in the room as I was working on this and laughed as I had a few choice words to say about Martha and her recipes as I was struggling.

Once I had finished cutting out my cookie rounds (most of which looked like footballs), they went into the freezer for another 15 minutes before baking. It took one full hour from the time I started this recipe until I could put the cookies in the oven. And I must admit having the oven on for that hour on a hot July day simply added to my crankiness. Let me also say this – do not attempt to make Martha’s cookies unless you have a chest freezer. Our fridge is a side by side, and cookie sheets do not fit in it. I had to trot down to the basement to the chest freezer with these cookie sheets.

Once in the oven, the cookies baked pretty much on schedule. The instruction to bake until they are firm on the edges is a good and useful one.

Now for the filling. Several weeks ago, in anticipation of this recipe, I bought a bar of dark chocolate. I went to get it out only to find Teen Martha had used most of it to make brownies. Sigh. I had 2 ounces, but needed 4. I ended up using some good quality semi-sweet chocolate to make up the difference.

The filling is easy to make. You heat cream, sugar and salt and then pour it over the chocolate and let it sit. You stir it and then let it cool. Very easy.

Once the cookies and filling were cooled, I assembled the cookies. The recipe says it makes 30. I didn’t count, but I think I got about 20 maybe. Make sure you stick these in the fridge right after you assemble them because the filling tends to run out and make a mess.

The taste test? Very yummy. The cookies are not very crisp (not like an Oreo), but that was ok. The filling is creamy and chocolatey (and would be better if I had used all dark chocolate!). I enjoyed these, but this was an awful lot of work for about 20 cookies. It took most of an afternoon. Too much time, not a big enough pay off. Now, if someone were to serve these to me, I would eat them happily, but I don’t think I’ll be making them again.